First Afghan woman to compete internationally since Taliban takeover seeks Olympic gold in Paris
PARIS: Zakia Khudadadi has spent most of her life breaking glass ceilings. Or rather, crushing them with a companion.
The taekwondo paralympian made history in 2021 in Tokyo, becoming the first Afghan woman to compete in an international sporting event since the Taliban seized control of her country when US and NATO troops withdrew after 20 years of war.
Initially barred from competing following the rise of the Taliban, she was later evacuated from Afghanistan and allowed to compete for her country following a request from the international community.
At the 2024 Paralympics, which are part of the wider Olympic competitions in Paris, Khudadadi said she was competing on behalf of her country's women, who have been gradually disenfranchised over the past three years.
“It's hard for me because I would like to compete under the flag of my country,” she said. But “the life of all girls and women in Afghanistan is forbidden. It's over. Today, I am here to win a medal in Paris for them. I want to show strength to all women and girls in Afghanistan.”
Khudadadi is competing for the refugee Paralympic team, while other athletes are chasing medals under the Afghan flag, such as Olympic sprinter Kimia Yousofi. Yousofi's parents fled during the previous Taliban rule, and she was born and raised in neighboring Iran. She said she wanted to represent her country, flaws and all, and wanted to be “the voice of Afghan girls.”
For Khudadadi, she started practicing taekwondo at the age of 11, training secretly at a gym in her hometown of Herāt, because there were simply no other opportunities for women to practice the sport safely. Despite a closed culture around her, Khudadadi said her family is open and will push her to be active.
Compounding her struggles to compete in Afghanistan, she said, was her disability.
Despite having “one of the largest per capita populations of people with disabilities in the world” due to the conflict, people with disabilities are often shunned and shut out of Afghan society, according to Human Rights Watch. Women are often disproportionately affected.
Born without a forearm, Khudadadi said she spent her life hiding her arm. It wasn't until he started competing that he started to change.
“Before I started the sport, I used to protect myself a lot with my arm. But little by little… I started to show my arm, but only in the club. Only during competition,” she said.
When she started competing, she said she felt the stigma begin to disappear. Taekwondo once again became her path to freedom and gained attention in 2016 when she won her first international medal.
That all changed five years later, when the Taliban made a dramatic rise to power after the Biden administration withdrew from Afghanistan. While preparing for Tokyo, Khudadadi got stuck in the country's capital, Kabul.
The International Paralympic Committee initially issued a statement saying the Afghan team would not participate in the 2021 Games “due to the serious situation unfolding in the country”. But in a bid to compete, Khudadadi released a video asking the international community for help.
“Please, I urge all of you, from women around the globe, from women's protection institutions, from all government organizations, not to let the rights of a citizen of Afghanistan in the Paralympic movement be taken so lightly,” she said . “I don't want my fight to be in vain.”
She was evacuated to Tokyo in 2021 to compete, leaving her family behind.
In doing so, she became the first Afghan female Paralympian in nearly two decades. In 2023, he won gold at the European Para Championships.
After flying out of Afghanistan, she settled in Paris, but said she wanted the mix of cultures that paint her country and the openness of people wandering the bustling streets of Kabul.
“I hope that one day I will be able to return to Afghanistan, to Kabul, to live together in freedom and peace,” she said.
Thousands of kilometers away in Khudadadi's hometown of Herat, Shah Mohammad, 38, was among those who threw their support behind Khudadadi and other Afghan athletes in Paris.
“We are happy for the Afghan women who went to the Olympics, but my wish is that one day the women inside Afghanistan can participate in the Games and be the voice of women in the country,” Mohammad said.
That day is unlikely anytime soon.
The Taliban cut women out of public life and barred girls from studying beyond the sixth grade as part of tough measures they imposed from 2021, despite initially promising a more moderate rule. As recently as January, the United Nations said the Taliban now restrict Afghan women's access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or without a male guardian.
Not only did they ban sports for women and girls, they intimidated and harassed those who once played.
But even before the Taliban returned to power, women's sports were opposed by many in the country's deeply conservative society, seen as a violation of women's modesty and their role in society.
However, the previous Western-backed government had programs encouraging women's sports and school clubs, leagues and national teams.
For Khudadadi, the IOC refugee team helped her and other athletes who fled their countries continue their careers. The Paralympian trains long hours – with her eyes set on a gold medal in Paris – with deep frustration as she watches her country's women's strides erode and Afghanistan slips back out of the global spotlight.
A question simmers in Khudadadi's mind: “Why has the world forgotten Afghan women?”
However, for others like Mohammad Amin Sharifi, 43, watching Khudadadi and other Afghan Olympians in Paris, especially women, was a point of pride for people like him in Afghanistan.
“Right now, we need the voices of Afghan women to be raised in any way possible, and the Olympics is the best place for that,” said Sharifi from Kabul. “We are happy and proud of the women who represent the Afghan people.”
